Artist:The Donnas
Song:Don't Wait Up for Me
Album:Bitchin'
The all girl band The Donnas are a 90s version of the successful 70s band The Runaways. After gaining a cult following in the Los Angeles area, they got a major label deal but they flopped. Bitchin' was their only album after that and then they split up. The Donnas were from Palo Alto, CA. They all went to school together. The members were Brett Anderson on lead vocals, Allison Robertson on guitar, Maya Ford on bass and Torry Castellano on drums. They are all self taught and they practiced in Torry's garage nearly every day while attending Palo Alto High School. At first they called themselves Ragady Anne and then The Electrocutes. Both are terrible names. So this next thing made me laugh. I guess The Electrocutes were a punk band. They decided to create a second band called The Donnas with the same girls. But they played softer rock and wore different clothes. I never heard of a band doing this. Supercharger guitarist Darin Raffaelli liked The Donnas enough to produce an album and release it on his own label. I wonder if they told him about The Electrocutes. They even took a week off their senior year of high school to tour Japan. They all called themselves Donna. They signed with the indie label Lookout Records. They released two albums. For the most part, The Donnas write and produce everything. They signed with Atlantic Records in 2001. The album Spend the Night was released in 2002. Atlantic brought in producer Jason Carmer who had previously produced Run DMC. Atlantic tried to promote The Donnas. They were on Saturday Night Live and other shows, the main stage at Lollapalooza in 2003. You name it, they tried it. Nothing worked. The album only reached #62 on the Billboard 200. For the 2004 album Gold Medal, Scott Lift was brought in. The Donnas liked his work with R.E.M. But when that didn't work out, Butch Walker was brought in. He was working with Avril Lavigne. Atlantic again tried all kinds of things to promote The Donna but they had no success. There were management changes at Atlantic so The Donnas left and started their own label with RED distribution for the 2007 album Bitchin'. The big problem The Donnas were having was Torry Castellano was having shoulder problems and she retired in 2010. Amy Cesari of The Demonics replaced her. There was talk in 2012 of a new album but that fizzled and The Donnas split up. Brett Anderson has done some singing, most notably the theme for the Netflix sitcom The 90s Show. Here's the video for Don't Wait Up for Me by The Donnas.
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